Medical copter crash in SC kills 3

Sunday

A medical transport helicopter that was damaged last year crashed in coastal South Carolina, killing all three people on board, authorities said Saturday.

The company that owned the helicopter, Addison, Texas-based Omniflight, said 45-year-old pilot Patrick Walters of Murrells Inlet, 42-year-old flight nurse Diana Conner of Florence, and 39-year-old paramedic Randolph Claxton Dove of Bladenboro, N.C., died in the crash Friday night.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators were en route Saturday. Agency spokesman Peter Knudson said no patients were on board the helicopter, which had dropped off a patient about 9:35 p.m. Friday in Charleston, about 60 miles southwest of Georgetown County.

In a statement, the company confirmed that the American Eurocopter AS350B2 took off from Charleston about 11 p.m. Friday and was headed to Conway, a city about 50 miles north of Georgetown.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen says the pilot last radioed air traffic control at 11:05 p.m., saying the crew was about four miles from an airport near Charleston and had it in sight.